Associate Editor, Optimization

Employer: Vox Media

Vox is seeking an associate editor of optimization to help ensure that our text journalism is properly optimized to reach the largest audience possible, and to make sure our audience has a good experience on our website.

This person will work with editors and writers across the newsroom to make sure articles have strong headlines, are optimized for search audiences, and have the right calls to action like related links, contribution asks, and newsletter signups. They will oversee content organization and taxonomy on Vox.com in order to increase recirculation and discoverability of related content on site, and make sure our stories are properly organized into groups and hubs. They’ll also own our homepage, curating it daily and developing a strategy to showcase Vox’s best work to our audience.

The ideal candidate is someone with strong editorial instincts and news judgement, as well as an eye for details and a passion for the intersection of editorial and product.

What you’ll do:

• Curate and manage the Vox.com homepage
  • Manage daily homepage curation to showcase our best journalism across text, video, and audio
  • Run homepage and headline A/B tests to increase on-site traffic and internal referrals
  • Work with editors and writers to ensure stories on the homepage have strong, compelling headlines, monitoring traffic analytics to identify opportunities to improve headlines as needed
• Ensure on site content, both homepage and articles, are optimized to maximize internal traffic and maximize time spent on site
  • Optimize articles to highlight related content for our audience, leading to increased recirculation and time on site
  • Ensure high-traffic articles have the appropriate calls to action, like callouts, contribution asks, video and podcast embeds, and newsletter signup fields
• Ensure that our text journalism is optimized to reach search audiences
  • Review search fields on priority stories and top news stories to ensure use of proper keywords and SEO best practices
  • Advise newsroom on search trends and keyword guidance around major news stories
  • Regularly share search trends and audience conversations with the newsroom to help inform story ideas and assignments
• Help manage content organization and taxonomy on site, including:
  • Create, manage, and update groups, hubs, storystream, and packages
  • Help determine what new tags and streams we need in order to better highlight editorial priorities on our homepage and other sections of our website.
  • Advise newsroom on which groups and streams to tag for various news stories and coverage areas
  • Act as newsroom expert on best practices for headlines, search optimization, and Optimize A/B testing, running periodic trainings on best practices

This is a full-time, temporary position from 1/2/2022 – 11/18/2022. This position can be remote, but may need to work East Coast hours.

What you’ll bring:

• Sharp headline writing skills and an understanding of what compels a reader to click without being clickbaity
• Understanding of SEO best practices and how to write strong search headlines
• Familiarity with SEO tools like Google Trends
• Strong news judgment and a pulse on the daily news cycle
• Attention to detail and strong organizational skills
• Comfortable with using publishing platforms and testing tools
• Proactive self-starter who thrives in a fast-paced environment
• Passion for news and for Vox’s mission
• Experience with A/B testing a plus
• Prior newsroom/media experience a plus

APPLY HERE